American woman sues Facebook over rude texts

Moral of the story? Don't put your phone number online!

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A woman in Indiana, USA, is suing Facebook after she was barraged with unsolicited text messages from the site's users. Lindsey Abrams says she signed up for a Verizon phone contract and immediately began receiving messages from people she didn't know.

The reason was that her new number was a recycled one, and its previous owner had posted it on her Facebook profile. But after the Facebook user changed her number, she forgot to update her page and the numbers new owner began receiving her messages. Some of them, she says, were explicitly rude.

Facebook sued once again

Mrs Abrams is now alleging that Facebook is profiteering from thousands of such messages to many different people. She claims she is being charged 10 cents for every message she receives, and was told by Verizon that the only way to stop it would be to block all text messaging.

Abrams' solicitor, Jay Edelson of Chicago, says that they want to make sure Facebook changes its text messaging service so that messages cannot be sent to recycled numbers.

"There are things that Facebook could be doing to prevent this from happening," Adelson said. "Hopefully, this suit will give them the incentive to stop it."